I havent posted an excerpt for several days, mostly because I got behind on the word-count pace needed to reach 50,000 by the 30th. That made me really nervous, because Im usually way ahead and only once in the past four years reached 50,000 after the 25th. I usually have a 10,000-word day in the early going, but not so this November. My day job as a journalist has merged over into evening and night work more than Id like this month, but thats the beast of newspaper journalism. Heres a nearly 1,900-word selection. This comes at the end of a good, productive day that was rattled somewhat by a disturbance in the Area of the Sacreds: someone stole two idols from the Temple of Claudius. Heres where the story continues. Warning: It gets a wee bit steamy here. Not generally the kind of detail that I write, but the context here is very important ... All of Philippi lay silent and the stillness of the night tempered the voices in Faustus and Perpetua’s sleeping room. An oil lamp cast soft shadows on the colorful mosaics on the walls. Faustus watched a shapely shadow take form as Perpetua changed into a freshly sewn tunic. The magnolias in her hair and the aromatic oils that were the feature of her massage that afternoon infused the room. Faustus breathed deeply. “Ahhhhh …” He continued to watch his wife’s shadow. “You are laughing?” Perpetua asked, her voice playful and light. “At the sight of your wife disrobing and freshening up?” Faustus took off the girdle that bound his tunic and he slipped off his sandals. He sat on the bed, rubbing his feet and breathing in the crisp night air. “I’m laughing,” he said, “because it seems like such an error that I am here. With you.” He was now facing Perpetua. “I am indeed lucky.” Perpetua lay beside him and Faustus turned on his side, stroking his bride’s hair. They didn’t speak, but their eyes gazed into each other’s soul. Faustus caressed her face and cupped his hand around the magnolia blossom in her hair. “You are a delicate, precious flower,” he whispered. “I am a lucky man.” Perpetua turned onto her side, away from Faustus, and scooted backward until she was spooning with Faustus. She touched and squeezed his arm and held his forearm under her chin. “Squeeze me tight, love,” she whispered back. “I should put out the lamp,” he said, kissing Perpetua’s cheek and ear. “You know what I’d like?” she said. “A big villa in Rome?” “Nope.” “A garden full of hydrangeas and tulips?” “No.” “But that does sound nice.” “Tell me what you want, precious,” Faustus said softly. His cheek was pressed to hers, and they seemed to melt into each other in embrace. Perpetua quickly turned to face Faustus. “I’d love it if you were to read to me.” Faustus laughed again, this time silently, but smiling. “I actually had something else in mind,” he said, nuzzling Perpetua’s neck. She kissed his cheek. “You aren’t resisting my attraction,” he whispered. “I will never resist you, my love,” she answered. She arched her neck and Faustus’s lips came to rest behind her ear. “You’re about to nibble my ear, aren’t you?” “I am.” Faustus drew in a long, deep breath. “You smell so good.” Then he stopped the kisses. “And you wanted me to read to you.” His words were a wisp against her ear. “I do.” Perpetua’s words escaped with barely a sound. Faustus raised himself on one elbow, looking directly over Perpetua’s face. He paused for the slightest moment to meet her eyes, then lowered his mouth onto hers and kissed her deeply. Then he sat up. “So, what shall we read, what shall we read?” he asked as if removing himself from the amorous moment. He glanced back at Perpetua, now awash in the blush of passion. “Who said anything about reading?” She reached toward Faustus and tried to pull him back onto the bed as he scooted off the bed. The lead-lined cedar box at the foot of the bed held the few possessions that Faustus and Perpetua shared from their 20 years of marriage. One or two mementos from each of their children, including the two boys that were no longer living, a handful of letters that they had received from friends or family in Rome, Syria and Bithnyia, and their collection of literature: Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey, as well as works by Callinus of Ephesus, the lyrical old Greek, Archilochus, and among others, The Bacchus, a play penned by Euripides. His works were among Perpetua’s favorites for their portrayal of strong women and wise slaves. Faustus chose The Iliad, but with the large bulky book closed, he stood and recited from heart one of his favorite passages: “Then he spoke and all the other gods gave ear. Hear me, said he, gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am minded.” Faustus feigned a low bow and puffed out his chest. Perpetua laughed out loud. Faustus made an exaggerated scowl at his wife, raised a fist toward the ceiling and continued. She giggled. “Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross me, but obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an end. If I see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or Danaans …” Faustus spoke with a cadence that was punctuated by strong accents in each word. “… he shall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to Olympus; or I will hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the deepest pit under the earth, where the gates are iron and the floor bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth, that you may learn how much the mightiest I am among you.” Now Perpetua was scowling. “Eww. Hurling into a deep pit, iron gates? Beaten inordinately?” She shook her head. “I’d say you just slaughtered the mood in here.” Faustus bowed low toward his wife. “Does my lady object to the power and might of the great god Jove?” She nodded. “Wonderful enactment,” she said with tempered enthusiasm. “But it strikes images that won’t usher in slumber.” She asked Faustus to find the story – any story – with Minerva. Faustus thumbed through the book and found one. Perpetua curled up on the bed, pulled her knees up under her arms, and clutched an amulet of Minerva, her household goddess. Faustus read more, this time without dramatic flair, but with particular attention to the rising arc of each sentence and paragraph. Perpetua closed her eyes. “When, therefore, Minerva saw these men making havoc of the Argives, she darted down to Ilius from the summits of Olympus, and Apollo, who was looking on from Pergamus, went out to meet her; for he wanted the Trojans to be victorious. The pair met by the oak tree, and King Apollo son of Jove was first to speak. What would you have said he, daughter of great Jove, that your proud spirit has sent you hither from Olympus?” Faustus read slowly in a low, gentle voice. Then he silently read a few sentences to himself. “Oh. Something about destroying the city.” He glanced over at Perpetua. Her eyes were still closed. “Don’t want to leave those images in your pretty head.” He followed his finger on the page to another passage. “And Minerva answered, So be it, Far-Darter; it was in this mind that I came down from Olympus to the Trojans and Achaeans. Tell me, then, how do you propose to end this present fighting? Apollo, son of Jove, replied, Let us incite great Hector to challenge some one of the Danaans …” Perpetua was snoring. It wasn’t a rafter-rattling snort or even a puff strong enough to dent a curtain, but just enough to show her complete surrender to the safety and nurture of her husband’s voice. He quietly placed the book back in the cedar chest, dislodging a piece of fabric from a corner of the chest. The faded 2-inch square of faded cream colored cloth had a name, in Perpetua’s handwriting: “Libertas.” Freedom. It was the name of their daughter, the baby girl that died less than a week after her birth as Perpetua slept long, falling back and forth between death and life, with Hartha the midwife unable to find a suitable wet nurse. Faustus lay down behind Perpetua and embraced her, feeling her breath on his arm. Then he heard his name. “Faustus.” The voice was quick and urgent. “Master. We need to speak.” It was Lutalo. He peered into the room around the curtain that divided the room from the great foyer. His eyes were wide and his lips trembled. Faustus quickly sprang out of bed, but didn’t wake his wife. He took long strides to step beyond the curtain and face Lutalo. “You look very alarmed, Lutalo.” His slave’s body shook. “This,” Lutalo said. He held up a sculpted obsidian idol of Claudius. Faustus stepped back. “Lutalo. Why?” He nervously ran a hand through his hair. “How?” “Master.” Lutalo stepped toward Faustus. “I did not put this here.” Faustus pulled the curtain shut, then went back into the bedroom and extinguished the lamp. He came back out, now gritting his teeth. “Lutalo, this is serious. This is …” “Master,” Lutalo interrupted. “I did not put this here.” “Then who did?” “I don’t know.” Lutalo held up one hand. “And there are others.” “Oh, dear Zeus, Jupiter and Socrates,” Faustus said. He craned his neck and took in a deep breath. “How many others?” “At least three.” “At least?” Lutalo explained that he and Nadra had lit votives to their gods and uttered prayers of humility, and as he put the votives in the window, he noticed one of their chests was slightly ajar. When Lutalo lifted the lid he discovered two of the stolen idols. “But there are others?” Faustus asked. “They were outside the window. On the ground.” Faustus rubbed his chin. “So someone put these here. We will have to find out who.” Lutalo still trembled. “Master, you didn’t question me. You don’t wonder if I took these?” Faustus shook his head. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “But I know you did not take these.” He put a hand on his slave’s shoulder. “Lutalo, you are a far better man than me, and I wouldn’t have taken these.” Nadra stepped into the great foyer with the other two idols, one a figure of Apollo and the other a circular sacred stone, the Dii Consentes, named for the 12 deities whose gilded images stood in the forum in Rome. Miniature busts of the deities were arranged in six male-female pairs. Few images of homage and worship were as sacred. None was as sacred as the two sculpted idols of Claudius, and having one in a private home meant doom for that home and all following generations. “You must return these – now,” Nadra said. The next move was obvious. Faustus agreed and Lutalo, nearly faint from the shock of finding the idols in his living quarters, insisted on going with Faustus despite his master’s objections. “Lutalo, that is far too dangerous,” he said. “If I am discovered, I will not be in danger. If you are discovered and we have these sacred idols, we will both be in peril. Great peril.” “I am coming,” Lutalo insisted. “We are stronger as two.” “And we can be deader as two,” Faustus said. Lutalo tightened his girdle. “We will be careful.” Faustus returned to his room to get his sandals and his girdle. Perpetua slept peacefully. He asked Nadra to look after Perpetua if for some reason they did not return soon.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 04:36:06 +0000
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